Love Complications. An educatinment drama about youth sexual and reproductive health

Thera Mjaaland has been exploring methods of engaging youth on competing norms concerning sexuality, contraceptive use and safe abortion in north-western Tigray, Ethiopia. This is the last of five 20-minute research-based edutainment dramas made between 2016 and 2018, and which uses art- and action research-inspired methods for conducting academic investigation on global health issues. For this last film, “Love Complications”, the youth wrote the script themselves. Within the first three weeks on YouTube, the Tigrinya version had half a million views - reaching Tigrinya-speaking Eritrean and Ethiopian youth all over the world. Financed by Norwegian Research Council/NORGLOBAL through the University of Bergen-based research project: “Competing discourses impacting girls’ and women’s rights: Fertility control and safe abortion in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia”, research data has been generated from the discussions of the drama with youth, parents, teachers, health workers, religious leaders and other community members.